Vostok Oil: Russia’s sleeping giant
Rosneft’s Arctic megaproject is happening despite sanctions, a lack of foreign investment and OPEC+ restrictions. But it will take a long time for its colossal potential to be realised
Russia’s state-owned Rosneft is pressing on with the country’s next major oil development, Vostok Oil, which at its height the company estimates could produce the equivalent of nearly a fifth of current national output. It is doing so in defiance of ever tightening Western sanctions on the Russian oil industry There is a consensus among experts that Vostok Oil is happening, with or without sanctions or increasingly hard-to-secure foreign investment. But how quickly its production will scale up over the coming years will depend on how the project fits within Russia’s OPEC+ quota. Rosneft is likely to leverage its significant lobbying power to get a favourable outcome, going head to head with

Also in this section
16 June 2025
BP and partners have reached a $2.9b FID on a new phase at Shah Deniz, but slow progress on other gas projects is attributed to a lack of European support
13 June 2025
US policies may have lasting effects in sectors such as energy, that rely on predictable rules and long-term planning
13 June 2025
The two oil heavyweights’ diverging fiscal considerations are straining unity within the group
13 June 2025
CEO argues the upstream potential remains huge as analysts question future oil production for Canadian province’s offshore industry